


Laying Traps For Troubadours

by internationalprincess



Category: West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-02-13
Updated: 2002-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-14 06:07:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/internationalprincess/pseuds/internationalprincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It occurs to me that Josh and I ought to be getting on a plane to Tahiti in a few hours.  And instead, I’m in an overcrowded DC bar, engaging in some strange parody of meeting my new boyfriend’s friends.  Except that in this case the ‘friends’ run the country.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laying Traps For Troubadours

I’m standing outside the bar with my hands shoved deep in my coat pockets, trying to work up the courage to either go in or walk away, when my cell phone rings again.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?”

I run quickly through a variety of lies I could tell; couldn’t find a cab, work crisis, migraine. I change the cell to my other ear, try to identify the source of my discomfort, and in the end choose the path of least resistance.

“I’m...just outside actually,” I say, pushing open the door and descending into the cloying warmth of the bar, clicking off the phone and sliding it back into my pocket.

He is standing, phone still pressed to his ear as he spins toward the door, eyes scanning the crowd for me. The remainder of the fab four are sitting in the booth behind him.

CJ and Toby are across from one another and appear to be engrossed in a heated conversation. He has his trademark scowl in place and is shaking his head from side to side. She has both her elbows propped up on the table and is making her point by waving her wineglass carelessly with one long, elegant hand. Sam is sitting alongside CJ and is paying them no attention at all. He has a small stack of cocktail napkins in front of him and is writing notes on them, rearranging them side by side.

Josh pushes through the crowd towards me and kisses me quickly, leaning in so he can be heard over the music, “I’m glad you came.”

I smile at him briefly, but don’t bother replying, as we make our way back to the booth and I slide in beside Toby. Josh squeezes in beside me.

Toby, bless him, behaves as if I have been part of the conversation since its outset. “Amy, can you please explain to CJ why affirmative action is a necessary evil?”

CJ rolls her eyes at him, as if he has grossly mischaracterised the nature of their argument, and lights a long thin cigarette from a packet on the table. It makes my fingers itch to have one, but I refrain. Instead I try to think of an intelligent answer to Toby’s question. This is my field. This man shouldn’t be intimidating me. But he’s Toby, and he is.

“Affirmative action is only ever meant to be a short term solution,” I respond slowly, taking a swig on the beer bottle Josh has placed in front of me. “It’s designed as a band-aid. We’re supposed to be attempting to fix the underlying problems in the meantime. Leveling the playing field.”

Toby nods, and I can’t tell if he approves of the answer or not. Josh has placed a hand on my knee and is tapping his fingers lightly in time with the music. He prods at Sam with his free hand, who looks up without the expression on his face changing at all.

“See the jukebox,” Josh says to him, gesturing around him, “the beer bottles, the bar snacks? We’re done working...”

Sam stares at him blankly for a few moments, flipping his pen methodically between the fingers of his right hand, and then he goes back to his notes.

CJ leans across the table toward me. “So, Amy... ‘Honky Tonk Woman’?”

I hold her gaze but can feel myself blushing outrageously. Someone has spilled the details of Josh’s disastrous early-morning phone call with Leo. I can feel him tense up beside me and let out an exasperated sigh.

“Aw, CJ...c’mon!”

She gives him a beatific smile before turning back to me.

“Personally,” she stage whispers, “I prefer ‘Sympathy for the Devil’.”

Sam joins in abruptly. “You know, after the Hell’s Angels killed Meredith Hunter at the Altamont Raceway concert, the Stones refused to perform that song for six years. The public felt it had incited the violence.”

Not to be outdone, CJ responds, “Also, Samuel, Mick Jagger went to the London School of Economics. Maybe he and the President swapped notes.”

Toby lets out an indelicate snort, and CJ grins at him.

Josh gets to his feet, “My round...”

“I’ll have another bourbon,” mutters Toby, still talking to CJ with his eyes.

“Make mine a chablis,” she says, also ignoring Josh in favour of smirking at Toby, “and get Sam something stronger than whatever he’s had so far.”

Josh pushes his way toward the bar, and as soon as he is out of earshot Sam looks up at me.

“So it worked then?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Whatever Josh did to...you know...apologise for being, well, Josh.”

I smile at Sam as I remember last night and the taste of rum on Josh’s skin, and the way the fake palm tree crashed to the ground when we rolled into it.

“Yeah it worked.”

“Good,” Sam shrugs, looking back down at his notes, “I’m glad.”

But he doesn’t really seem to be.

“What are you working on?”

Sam doesn’t look up, but screws up his latest napkin and dunks it into a glass of water beside him, the ink bleeding and soaking away.

“President’s speech to the UN.”

It occurs to me that Josh and I ought to be getting on a plane to Tahiti in a few hours. And instead, I’m in an overcrowded DC bar, engaging in some strange parody of meeting my new boyfriend’s friends. Except that in this case the ‘friends’ run the country. They have been inseparable for the last five years or so. An allegiance tempered by scandal, tragedy and gunshots. An exclusive club.

“And you should put it away,” grumbles Toby, rubbing at his forehead, “Josh is right. We’re done working.”

This time Sam acquiesces, tucking his napkins carefully into the pocket of his suit jacket, slung across the back of the booth.

Josh returns to the table, balancing drinks that he clunks down without finesse. Sam takes a large swallow from the glass Josh slides to him, and looks at Toby. “You know what...next time? I think maybe one of you can meet with the crackpot.”

CJ explains for my benefit that Sam had taken a meeting yesterday with some loon about missing gold in Fort Knox.

“I’m serious,” Sam continues, his beautiful face curled up in a pout. “It wasn’t even Big Block of Cheese Day.”

I raise both eyebrows at Josh, who laughs and says, “Don’t ask.”

Toby is trying to hide a smile.

Josh inclines his beer bottle toward Sam. “We get you to do it because if Toby did it, well, he’d take the guy’s head off. And if CJ did it, we’d...I dunno...wind up doing an exploratory study into the density of gold or something...”

“Hey!” CJ protests.

“CJ,” Josh swings to gesture at her, “I’ve got one word for ya...Pluto.”

“It was ‘Pluie’,” she retorts, “and that was different...”

“Yeah, yeah. And if *I* did it...well...I think we all know what a bad idea that would be.”

Sam doesn’t seem appeased, and looks to me as some sort of neutral arbiter. “So do you think that just because I have some measure of diplomacy, I ought to have to sit with every lunatic who demands the ear of the white House?”

“No...” I smile at him, “it should be some sort of rotating punishment. Like taking out the trash when you were a kid.”

CJ gives a little clap. “I *like* that idea.”

Josh snags a peanut and throws it at CJ. “See I think you’re thinking this means you get to decide who’s being punished.”

CJ is nodding vigorously, “Who else, my friend!”

“Uh uh.” I shake my head at her. “It has to be someone impartial. What about Leo?”

Sam slumps back in his seat. “Leo was the one who gave me the damn meeting.”

Josh and CJ laugh out loud. Even Toby manages a grin.

They’re such an unlikely bunch, I think, as they continue to banter back and forth. They could be any four work colleagues out for a drink. It would be impossible to tell from looking at them that Sam’s water glass has a discarded Presidential speech floating in it. That CJ’s spent the day in front of television cameras. That Toby is writing the way our foreign policy will be presented to the United Nations in his head.

That Josh - my Josh - had to be stitched back together after a madman tried to tear them apart.

Josh takes my hand under the table.

I don’t know who ‘Pluie’ is. I have no idea what Big Block of Cheese Day means. But I do know that while I’m there the conversation can’t turn to the things that weigh on them. And each of them seems oddly grateful for that.

And CJ makes us laugh about the 4H Convention, and her own views on Dadaism, until my sides are aching. Josh and Sam devise some new and complicated way to play quarters, and argue about the rules until Toby cracks both of them on the knuckles with a file folder he’s had tucked behind him, like some sort of tired father-figure. But he’s almost smiling as he does it.

And it’s Toby who helps me on with my coat, as we’re making our way out at the end of the night. Josh having wandered on ahead, walking backwards as he argues pointlessly with CJ about a sporting metaphor, and she hums and sticks her fingers in her ears.

It’s Toby who says to me that it was he who told Josh about John, and about Nan Lieberman.

It’s Toby who takes my hand for a brief moment, and says that he’s sorry for sticking his nose in.

“Josh,” he says, looking anywhere but at me, “is a good guy. He’s bound to be a terrible...you know...boyfriend...whatever. But his motives are pure.”

This halting confession, from this dedicated, brilliant, and terrifying man, is almost more than I can bear. I hug him quickly and say, “Thank you.”

And he holds the door open for me as we make our way outside, where Josh swoops me into a tight embrace, and kisses me soundly.

“Get a room!” Toby mutters.

“You know boys?” CJ says, as she stretches an arm out to hail a taxi. “I think we may just be getting our groove back.”

A car pulls into the curb, and she and Toby climb in. Sam looks indecisive, until CJ leans out the still open door of the car and calls, “Samuel! Leave the lovebirds alone.” And he nods in our direction and gets in the cab.

Josh waves at them, and then turns to face me as they drive away.

“How was that?” he asks softly.

I reach up and push my fingers into his hair.

“I think we can do that again,” I say, leaning to kiss his earlobe.

“Good,” he says, smirking at me, “’Cause I think they’re probably gonna be around for at least four more years...”

And he takes me by the hand as we set off toward his apartment.


End file.
